At the Feb 5th Delta Bee Club meeting Randy Oliver spoke and said that using Fumagillin may at times make Nosema levels worse. He said a lot of other things about Pristine and Dimilin which is an IGR and a lot of other stuff. Randy talks 60 Mile an hour and I can only listen at 30. There are others on here who were at the meeting, maybe they will chime in. The last thing he said was "see my article in next months ABJ".

In medical school, one could likely pass through the first couple of days on the surgery ward by simply reciting "The solution to pollution is dilution". This statement relates to the cleansing of open wounds by flushing copiously with sterile saline. No bactericidal agents are used, as these damage viable tissue to a greater extent than they kill germs.

Keith is adding cohorts of nosema-free bees to his hives by encouraging massive broodrearing. (Those broodnests are three times the size of mine here in Oregon.) As he shakes adults for sale, he is ridding the hive of nosema susceptible individuals. He is getting some of the same effect as moving colonies from their last summer nectar flow before flight has ended, thus cleansing the hive of the more heavily diseased physiologically old foragers.

Now, I would bet that Keith may also add his subs to hives as they near the end of a honey flow as well. This would complete the cycling of fresh disease-free bees into the hive as disease-laden bees are eliminated.

This does not suggest that the bees eliminated from the hive are truly disease laden, rather, if a pathogen was to gain entrance into a colony, it's likelihood of effectively establishing itself is diminished by this practice.

By the way, Keith, what percentage of the hive do you think is removed with each shaking?

Andrew

02-07-2013, 07:00 PM

irwin harlton

Re: Fumagilian-B

Keith said"We have a micro-flora builder in our sub which competes with the nosema spores. "

Is the miro-flora builder a probotic?

World English Dictionary
microflora (ˈmaɪkrəʊˌflɔːrə) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]

— n
the community of microorganisms, including algae, fungi, and bacteria that live in or on another living organism or in a particular habitat

02-07-2013, 07:04 PM

irwin harlton

Re: Fumagilian-B

Some keepers, like me in the north, treat their bees with Fumidil -B loyally every fall............................it seems to help the keeper sleep at nite

02-08-2013, 08:17 AM

Michael Bush

Re: Fumagilian-B

> Randy Oliver spoke and said that using Fumagillin may at times make Nosema levels worse.
>it seems to help the keeper sleep at nite

With a false sense of security...

02-08-2013, 11:23 AM

Allen Martens

Re: Fumagilian-B

Quote:

Originally Posted by irwin harlton

Some keepers, like me in the north, treat their bees with Fumidil -B loyally every fall

That was me most years up until a couple of years ago. Some of my hives were tested for nosema in the middle of winter and came back with spore numbers that were through the roof. Bees were collected from under the lid. That investment into fumagillin-B the fall before was sure worth it--NOT.

The hives wintered fine and build up nicely the following spring. Go figure.

This study, I believe was done in 2009/10...................not much new since than,except reports showing spore count spikes up again after treatment, which is not good, this is saying that Fumidil B will in fact encourage a deeper more virile infection after initial treatment

02-25-2013, 10:31 AM

jim lyon

Re: Fumagilian-B

We havent used Fumigilian-B for 3 years now. Of 16 samples pulled by the state late in the summer 10 were negative. The 6 positives averaged 1.52 per million. The treatment threshold that I have heard used before is 5 though I havent any idea how that number was arrived at.

03-12-2013, 12:52 PM

irwin harlton

Re: Fumagilian-B

> Use of fumagillin may increase the prevalence of N. ceranae and is potentially a factor in replacement of N. apis by N. ceranae in US apiaries.

Fumagillin treatment is known to reduce microsporidian
reproduction and is probably useful for protecting weak
colonies [2], but the antibiotic may have unintended effects on the
honey bee host, ultimately contributing to increased prevalence
and pathogenicity of N. ceranae. In addition, the time period of N. ceranae
hyperproliferation may reverse the benefits gained at the
beginning of fumagillin treatment, resulting in indistinguishable
performance between fumagillin treated and untreated hives.

Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey
Bees
Wei-Fone Huang1*, Leellen F. Solter1, Peter M. Yau2, Brian S. Imai2
1 Illinois Natural History, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, United States of America, 2 Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center, Protein
Sciences Immunological Resource Center, 307 Noyes Laboratory, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America
Abstract
Fumagillin is the only antibiotic approved for control of nosema disease in honey bees and has been extensively used in
United States apiculture for more than 50 years for control of Nosema apis. It is toxic to mammals and must be applied
seasonally and with caution to avoid residues in honey. Fumagillin degrades or is diluted in hives over the foraging season,
exposing bees and the microsporidia to declining concentrations of the drug. We showed that spore production by Nosema
ceranae, an emerging microsporidian pathogen in honey bees, increased in response to declining fumagillin concentrations,
up to 100% higher than that of infected bees that have not been exposed to fumagillin. N. apis spore production was also
higher, although not significantly so. Fumagillin inhibits the enzyme methionine aminopeptidase2 (MetAP2) in eukaryotic
cells and interferes with protein modifications necessary for normal cell function. We sequenced the MetAP2 gene for apid
Nosema species and determined that, although susceptibility to fumagillin differs among species, there are no apparent
differences in fumagillin binding sites. Protein assays of uninfected bees showed that fumagillin altered structural and
metabolic proteins in honey bee midgut tissues at concentrations that do not suppress microsporidia reproduction. The
microsporidia, particularly N. ceranae, are apparently released from the suppressive effects of fumagillin at concentrations
that continue to impact honey bee physiology. The current application protocol for fumagillin may exacerbate N. ceranae
infection rather than suppress it.
Citation: Huang W-F, Solter LF, Yau PM, Imai BS (2013) Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees. PLoS Pathog 9(3): e1003185. doi:10.1371/
journal.ppat.1003185
Editor: David S. Schneider, Stanford University, United States of America
Received July 6, 2012; Accepted December 21, 2012; Published March 7, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Huang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This project was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2009-85118-05718, from the USDA National Institute of
Food and Agriculture, and USDA-CSREES Project no. ILLU-875-302-0205249 S-1024. The research was also supported by the Prairie Research Institute, Illinois
Natural History Survey and Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center, Protein Sciences Immunological Resource Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: wfhuang@illinois.edu